Mondale's campaign: A glass train or an unstoppable iron horse?
It has been a cake-walk—so far. He has raised almost twice as much money as his nearest competitor. The AFL-CIO, the United Auto Workers, the National Education Association and the National Organization for Women all support him. So do Tip O'Neill, Robert Strauss, perhaps 100 members of the House, New York Governor Mario Cuomo, Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis, San Francisco Mayor Dianne Feinstein, Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley, Detroit Mayor Coleman Young. Concedes a top strategist: "The worst Pollyanna in our bunch wouldn't have been able to predict last December that we would be in this position now."
But one question remains, and it is the most important one of all: When the voting starts, will people line up behind Walter Mondale? Despite the gathering momentum of his campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination, skeptics note that Mondale has not aroused the electorate, that his support, in the words of one, is "a mile wide and an inch thick." Another doubter likens Mondale's campaign to a glass train: one bump, and it is sure to shatter.
After long months of polishing and revving up, the Mondale locomotive is poised for its first tests, in the Iowa caucuses next week and the New Hampshire primary on Feb. 28. Mondale, 56, will be running against seven other Democrats and the high expectations generated by his picture-perfect campaign. "A win's a win," argues acting Campaign Chairman James Johnson, who rightly scoffs at the claim of rivals that Mondale must get 60% of the votes in Iowa and New Hampshire or be seen as slipping. Still, anything less than a 10% margin of victory over the runner-up in New Hampshire—and at least 40% of the vote in Iowa—might be interpreted by the press as a defeat, and this has filled Mondale staffers with gloomy imaginings. What if Jesse Jackson surprises in New Hampshire and siphons votes from their man? What if Mondale supporters stay home, assuming their votes will not be needed? What if cantankerous Democrats register their protest at the notion that they are being run over by a Mondale machine before they can even be heard?
All of the fretting is prudent in the unpredictable arena of primary politics, but it is probably unwarranted. A new nationwide poll of Democrats and independents taken for TIME by Yankelovich, Skelly & White, Inc. shows that Mondale is still on a roll. Last December his lead over John Glenn was 34% to 18%; now it has jumped to 50% to 18%, a leap of 16 percentage points. Worse yet for Glenn and the other candidates is that the undecided vote has fallen from 26% to 14% in that period, with most of those who made up their minds apparently choosing Mondale. Perhaps wishfully, the other campaigners had considered the uncertain voters as likely to be anti-Mondale. Jackson is a distant third at 6%.
Mondale holds commanding leads in Iowa and New Hampshire as Democrats in those states prepare to make their choices. A mid-January poll by the Des Moines Register gives him a 49%-to-20% margin over Glenn. Alan Cranston and George McGovern tied for third place at 6%. A Boston Globe survey late last month shows Mondale ahead of Glenn, 42% to 19%, in New Hampshire. Jackson is next with 10%, ahead of Gary Hart's 8%.